


i can see your mood ring, Castiel

by nataytay407



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Canon Divergence, Dean Winchester/Castiel - Freeform, Destiel - Freeform, Eventual Romance, I don't know how to do tags, Implied Romance, M/M, Oblivious Sam Winchester, POV Sam Winchester, Sam Winchester can see angel wings, Sam can see Castiel's emotions, a lot of stuff from canon but with Wings, destiel doesn't quite happen but it's getting there, soldier!Castiel, spoilers for seasons 4 to 14, this is my first published fic please don’t get angry at me it isn’t perfect
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-15
Updated: 2019-04-18
Packaged: 2020-01-14 15:15:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18478858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nataytay407/pseuds/nataytay407
Summary: a SPN au where everything is the same except Sam can see the haloes and wings of angels due to the large amounts of demon blood he consumed.(based off of barduils' Tumblr post about angels having haloes that change color like mood rings)





	1. Chapter 1

When Sam opened the door to his hotel room and saw two figures, one standing by the window and the other sitting at the kitchen table, his first reaction was to pull out his gun and demand to know who they were. However, as soon as the words left his mouth, he already knew.

The guy at the table looked normal enough on his own- mussed up brown hair, a tan trenchcoat- but there was a different aspect of him that made him stand out.

A huge pair of wings sprouted from his back, spreading out just far enough to keep them clear of the chair he was sitting in but also brushing the floor. His feathers were almost fluffy and the color of a raven’s. A perfectly white halo floated above his head, lightly glowing.  

Sam barely heard Dean yell his name, to put his gun down because that was Castiel the angel. There was an angel in his hotel room. The angel that had raised Dean from hell.

The angel that Dean just would _not_ stop talking about.

Castiel rose from his chair and turned around to face Sam and Dean. His eyes were a piercing blue, and he was much… scruffier than Sam had imagined. His blue tie was backwards and way too loose, and he had a five o’clock shadow.

“Hello, Sam.” Holy shit, he sounded like he ate gravel for breakfast. His wings spread slightly outwards, taking up almost half of the space from wall to wall.

Sam was struck speechless. It took him a moment before he was able to stammer out an apology for pulling his gun on the angel. Almost eagerly, he held out his hand in a friendly manner.

It took Castiel a second or two to understand that Sam was trying to greet him with a handshake. For a few moments, Sam thought Castiel’s halo flickered a pale orange color, but he shook it off as just being his imagination.

“Sam Winchester.” Castiel smiled lightly, holding Sam’s hand in both of his own. “The boy with the demon blood.”

Sam’s smile faded. One of the first things that an angel said to him, and it felt like a slap across the face.

Castiel let go of his hand before beginning to explain that the witch Sam and Dean were hunting was attempting to break one of the 66 seals. Eventually the other man in the room spoke up, introducing himself as Uriel. He was an angel as well- the only difference between him and Castiel, besides their vessels, was that his wings were smaller, and he had two pairs of them attatched to his back. His feathers were sleeker and a deep red color.

For just a brief moment, Sam let himself get lost in his thoughts. Dean hadn’t mentioned seeing Castiel with wings and a halo- in fact, Sam was sure that Dean had even said specifically that he didn’t believe Castiel was an “angel of the lord” because he _didn’t have wings._

If Dean couldn’t see Castiel’s wings, then why could Sam?

 

* * *

 

Sam eventually discovered that an angel’s halo acted almost like a mood ring.

It took him a while. Castiel barely showed emotion, and if he ever did, his halo would change color, but usually only ever so slightly.

Each color correlated with a different emotion. The most common one was confusion- Castiel wasn’t very good at understanding human culture. His halo would turn a pale orange whenever Dean made a joke or reference that Castiel didn’t get.

Another one, albeit less common, was anger. This one was more noticeable. His halo turned red and, on rare occasions, would grow little spikes. The only time Sam saw Castiel at his worse point of anger was when Michael and Lucifer were about to begin the apocalypse. Castiel had molotoved Michael with a canister of holy oil, and just before Lucifer exploded him with a snap of his fingers, Sam saw that Castiel’s wings were spread wide and his halo was blazing red with fury.

 

Castiel began showing more emotions the longer he was around the Winchesters. His halo cycled through more colors, and they became a few shades darker and easier to see. There were a couple colors missing, and some that Sam didn’t know the emotional equivalent for, but he was starting to understand Castiel a little more.

A little while after he got his soul back, Sam had made a list for what color equaled what emotion. A light blue halo with bits of it dripping off like rainwater, that was sadness. A shining golden yellow halo, that was happiness. A purple halo, that was embarrasment. Sam had also seen a deep blue and a green a few times, and only once a very light shade of pink, but they were marked with a question mark on his list.

 

* * *

 

The moment that Castiel had taken all the souls from purgatory, his halo shone a brilliant white, with the light of a thousand stars.

The next time Sam saw him, one tiny sliver of his halo was stained a pure black. If Sam had been able to get a closer look, he would have been able to see that it was dripping the same black blood that the Leviathans had running through their veins.

When Sam and Dean managed to cart Castiel back to the laboratory where he had first opened the gates of purgatory, his halo was stained all over with black marks, masking the godly light it had once shone. The way it was stained, it was as if someone with hands covered in black paint had grabbed onto every part of it that they could, with the intent of making the whole halo a pure black color. It dripped with Leviathan blood, but no one besides Sam could see the stains that it left on Castiel’s coat.

The last time Sam saw Castiel that year, he was soaked in red and black blood, wading into the water reservoir.

Just before he vanished underwater, his wings stretched out towards the sky, feathers matted with blood. His halo was pure black. Both were dripping black blood as the Leviathans drove Castiel into the water, arms outstretched.

He disappeared into the lake. A moment passed in silence, then the water began swirling as the black liquid rose to the surface and shot away in all directions.

Sam thought he would never see Castiel again.

But then again, when has death ever stopped a Winchester?

The next time Sam saw him, Castiel was transferring the chaos in Sam’s head to himself. Exhausted, but finally regaining his sanity, Sam watched helplessly as the illness travelled up into Castiel’s head. His halo shifted rapidly from its original white to a pletheora of mixed colors. Castiel had taken Sam’s insanity, and Sam could already see its toll.

 

* * *

 

When Dean escaped from purgatory, he was a changed man.

When Castiel escaped from purgatory, he wouldn’t have appeared much different to  anyone but Sam.

Besides the beard, Sam noticed something strange. Castiel’s halo was back to its normal white, but the pale pink color Sam had only seen once before had shown up again. Multiple times. It was a slightly darker shade as well, meaning it was growing stronger.

When Castiel stepped out of the bathroom in newly cleaned clothes, and Dean shifted somewhat awkwardly in his seat when he saw him, a tiny new suspicion formed in the back of Sam’s head.

As amusing as it was, he didn’t voice it.

 

* * *

 

Sam knew that the angels all lost their wings in the Fall. He knew Castiel wouldn’t look the same. He just wasn’t sure what the extent of the damage would look like.

It was much worse than he thought.

Sam woke up on the floor of the apartment he and Dean had just broken into. They knew Castiel was in there, but the reaper who was holding him hostage still had some power. She threw Sam into a closet with a wave of her hand, which broke the doors and knocked him unconscious for a few minutes.

When he came to, he was, for some reason, sitting upright just next to the closet. He didn’t exactly know how he got there, but Sam completely disregarded it when he stood up and saw Castiel.

He was slumped over in a chair, glancing around wildly with his shirt torn open. Sam couldn’t see his halo, which he sort of expected.

Then Dean helped Castiel out of the chair.

There were two large tears in the back of his shirt. Through them, Sam could see the places where Castiel’s wings had been attached to his back.

They had been torn straight off of him. The same way a young child tears the wings off of a fly or a moth for amusement. There were huge, barely healed scars streaking down his back, from his shoulderblades all the way down to his waist. The scars were deep and a sickening red color, stained all around with blood. The smallest of black feathers were stuck inside and around the edges. The scars were just beginning to heal.

When Dean patted Castiel on the back as an act of encouragement, Sam felt himself wincing as he saw Castiel’s face contort with pain. Dean saw the angel almost double over and realized that he was still injured. He asked Castiel where he was wounded, but didn’t say a thing about the scars on his back- only a mention that his shirt was weirdly torn.

 

* * *

  


Castiel had gotten his grace back a few years ago. His halo had reappeared, the same way it had been before the Fall. His wings… _technically_ reappeared as well, but they were practically just flesh and bone. A few feathers hung off of them here and there, but for the most part, he looked like a plucked bird.

After a while, he didn’t seem to mind it.

Sam was finally able to decipher what Castiel’s other halo colors meant. The dripping green was jealousy (and a somewhat yellower shade was for disgust), the deep blue was for fear, and the pink…

Well, Sam wasn’t quite sure what the pink meant. For a while, at least.

At some point, the Winchesters finally caught a break from all the madness. They decided to just stay in the Men of Letters bunker for a while. That day, Dean and Castiel were in the kitchen cooking something, and Jack and Sam were sitting in the library. Jack was reading a book about the lore of zombies (a topic that, for some reason, fascinated him), and Sam had recently found a book on minor angel lore. It had a section on how their haloes are directly linked to their emotion, which Sam was estatic to have discovered.

When he walked into the kitchen to get another beer out of the fridge, he heard Dean murmuring something and turned his head to look at him. Dean and Castiel were attempting to cook something- burgers, Sam found out a little while later- and Castiel was still very new to cooking. Dean, however, was Mr. Chef Extraordinare and excellent at it, so he was teaching Castiel. The two were standing rather close together as Dean fiddled with a frying pan and Castiel attempted to chop some kind of vegetable.

Then Sam looked up a little more and saw a _vibrantly pink_ halo.

He almost dropped his beer.

The most pink he had ever seen in Castiel’s halo was only a semi-pale shade, and he rarely saw it. He had just assumed that that meant Castiel only occasionally felt that emotion, and a small amount when he did.

Sam was dumbfounded, trying to recognize which emotion this was. Then Dean put down the frying pan with an exasperated noise and put his hand over Castiel’s, which was holding a knife, to help him mince a vegetable a little finer, and a couple of tiny pink hearts appeared over Castiel’s halo.

_Hearts._

Sam was suddenly smacked over the head with realization. Neither Dean nor Castiel had heard or seen him come into the kitchen, so he quickly slipped back into the library. Putting his beer down on the table as he sat down, he immediately forgot about it as he took a moment to register what he just saw.

“Love.” He didn’t realize he said it out loud, and Jack glanced up at him, his own little halo turning a light orange before going back to his book.

“Pink means love.” Sam chuckled to himself. Man, he was about to have a _field day_ with this.

 

* * *

 

A few days later, when Dean and Jack were out of the bunker on a supply run, Sam decided to finally tell Castiel about what he saw.

They were both sitting at the table in the library, Sam mulling around on his computer and Castiel nose-deep in a book. Sam thought about it for a moment before looking up from his computer.

“Hey, Cas?”

Castiel glanced up from his book. “Yes, Sam?” His halo turned a pale orange.

Sam didn’t say anything for a moment. He watched Castiel’s halo turn from orange to a light turquoise- the color for concern.

“You know how haloes work, right?” he finally asked. “Like, how they’re directly linked to your emotions?”

“Well, I would think so, yes.” Castiel frowned. No color change. “...How did you know that they change color?” he asked, sounding a little suspicious.

“Oh, I found a book the other day about some minor angel lore,” Sam lied. He hadn’t told Dean or Castiel (or anyone, for that matter) that he could see angel wings and haloes, but it just… there was never really a good time for him to tell anyone. The Winchesters never really caught a break, and the random fact that Sam could visibly see Castiel’s emotions wasn’t ever really needed.

Until now.

“ ...Sam, you wouldn’t bring this up for no reason, would you?” Castiel’s halo was beginning to shift to a dark blue.

“Well…”

Oh, fuck it. If Sam was ever going to tell anyone, why not now?

He sighed. “Cas, I probably should have told you about this a while ago, but…”

“But what?” His halo was getting bluer.

“I can see your halo. And your wings.”

There was a moment of silence as Castiel registered what Sam just told him. Then it clicked, and Castiel went flying through the entire color range in record time.

It stopped on dark blue and purple a couple times, then on orange a bit, before finally settling on a light purplish-pink color that Sam hadn’t seen before. Castiel was staring at the table while he went careening through his color range, but when it slowed down, he looked back up at Sam, eyes wide.

“ ...What?” he half whispered. “How?”

Sam shrugged. “At this point, I’ve just chalked it up to having something to do with all that demon blood I drank before we accidentally let Lucifer out of the pit. Don’t know how it lingered this long, but it’s been useful sometimes.”

Castiel now finally seemed to grasp the concept of Sam being able to see his wings and halo. The color shifted to purple. He drew his featherless wings closer to his back, as if trying to hide them from view.

“I guess there’s… _some_ explanation there,” Castiel said, staring down at the table again. “I’ve never heard Dean talk about it, but I’m assuming he knows about it too.”

“Nope.”

That caused Castiel to raise his eyebrows in surprise.

“I never found a good time to tell him,” Sam explained, “so I just… didn’t.”

“I thought you told Dean everything?”

Sam scoffed. “Oh, _definitely_ not.” He grinned. “For example, I haven’t told him that in the past couple of days, whenever you two are in the same room, your halo turns a very vibrant pink. With little hearts as well.”

The color shifted to the brightest purple Sam had ever seen. Castiel’s face was growing red, eyes wide. It took him a moment to figure out how to respond.

“So… are you ever going to tell Dean you can see my halo?” he asked.

Sam chuckled. “If you don’t want me to, I won’t. But _you_ should probably tell him how you feel. Maybe then he’ll stop venting about all his romantic feelings to me.” He grinned at Castiel.

His halo slowly shifted from purple to a radiant yellow, and he smiled back at Sam.

“Maybe I will.”  


	2. haloes & wings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> just some visualization of what castiel’s halo colors look like and also what his wings look like pre and post Fall (plus a wingless cas)

this is kind of a stupid, short chapter but i just wanted to throw in some links 

 

[here’s what castiel’s haloes look like with every emotion ](https://carry-on-im-wayward-done.tumblr.com/post/184271245718/hey-if-you-havent-read-my-new-fic-yall-should-go)

 

[here’s what castiel’s wings look like pre & post fall, plus what he looks like wingless (gore tw for the last one) ](https://carry-on-im-wayward-done.tumblr.com/post/184275667613/castiel-pre-post-fall-from-this-fic-gore-tw)

**Author's Note:**

> check out the next chapter for art! it shows what each emotion looks like on Castiel’s halo.


End file.
